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Web3 Strategy, Startup Scaling & Operational Excellence | James Bourque | WT3 011
15 Plays10 months ago
"Communication, communication, communication. Community."
Dive into the world of Web3 startups with James Bourque, CEO and co-founder of Intu. In this episode of What The 3, James shares invaluable insights on building and scaling a successful Web3 venture, from effective decision-making to fostering innovation and adapting to the rapidly evolving tech landscape.
Discover how to navigate the challenges of emerging technologies, build strong teams, and make strategic decisions in the fast-paced world of blockchain and cryptocurrency. James discusses his journey from diverse industries to Web3, offering practical advice on finding product-market fit, managing risks, and cultivating strategic partnerships.
Learn about the importance of community building in the crypto space, effective communication strategies for growing teams, and how to balance innovation with execution. Whether you're a first-time founder or a seasoned entrepreneur, this episode is packed with actionable insights on startup funding, operational excellence, and leveraging emerging technologies like AI alongside blockchain.
Don't miss out on James's perspectives on the future of Web3 infrastructure, overcoming startup challenges, and fostering a culture of innovation. This episode is essential listening for anyone interested in tech leadership, cryptocurrency ventures, and the cutting edge of digital innovation.
Join hosts Charles Algar and Thomas Van Den Broek as they explore the intricacies of operating an emerging tech business with James Bourque. Subscribe to What The 3 for more expert insights on navigating the exciting world of Web3 and beyond!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
oh Welcome to this episode of the What The Three podcast, the podcast where we learn with you emerging technology founders how to go from zero to one. This episode, we're going to talk about strategy and operations, strategic considerations as a baseline for success, planning and execution.
Meet James Bryant-Bork, Web3 Innovator
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm quite excited for this episode because this is basically our business, so we found the best that we could in the market in James. I want to tell you a little bit about him now. So today we are thrilled to introduce James Bryant-Bork, CEO and co-founder of Intu, a trailblazer in building Web3 infrastructure, hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area and now based in Paris.
00:00:41
Speaker
James has a rich background in business operations and a passion for cryptography. Before founding Intu, he led innovative projects at guerra.co, focusing on developing key web3 protocols. James has worked for Craft Ventures under David Sacks before building into at Station F's founders program, eventually leading the Web3 community and guilds. James is here today to share his unique insights into the evolving world of Web3. Get ready for an enlightening discussion. yeah Welcome. What's up, Charlie? What's up, Thomas? We're very glad that you're here, man. We're very glad that you're here.
James' Journey into Web3: Inspirations and Challenges
00:01:17
Speaker
And it's one of the the first things I always ask because ah you have a rich Web2 background, right? ah What was that catalyst moment? What was that rabbit hole for you ah where you were like, whoa, Web3, this is something I want to want to do something. or Actually, I want to build a company. And I mean, there's every guest that we spoke to so far has that. So what what what was your catalyst moment? I'll kind of start at the beginning and say that I i don't have a strong Web 2 background. And I think actually the FOMO of not having a strong Web 2 background was really what helped me jump like right into Web 3 the minute I heard about it. um Obviously, growing up in California, in Northern California, Silicon Valley,
00:01:58
Speaker
I didn't realize how special of a place that was in the 90s and how much tech was around me. I took it for granted. right The fact that I was and building a computer so I could play Doom when I was like nine years old or whatever. um that That's not an experience that everybody had. And I really felt when the cloud came around, right when SaaS came around. I remember the first time I heard that someone's going to do SaaS and I go, that's stupid. Why would someone pay every month for something they could have bought once? like That doesn't make any sense. And so I kind of missed it. And then I obviously saw everything happen with cloud. And right now, we have Sales Horse Tower downtown. And um and yeah, so like I totally missed it. So like the really, like i mean if you want to boil it down, the catalyst for jumping into Web3 was
00:02:43
Speaker
I missed Web 2. The FOMO was overwhelming. um So I've always had that interest. you know Obviously, there's there's some personal components to it. i've I've had some concerns over data privacy. I've had my identity stolen more times than I can count. right I've been subject to these hacks, you know whatever. And kind of between working at Craft Ventures and seeing the team and the community start really getting into... I mean, what was back then just blockchain, right crypto, was even a Web 3. um I started paying attention. It's like, oh, this is something that people that are more successful, more intelligent than I am are interested in. I should probably try and learn. I'm in a good place to learn. This is San Francisco. um The really like, ooh, I need to do this moment was when I found out about Ethereum.
00:03:30
Speaker
right like Bitcoin was cool. I've ignored it a few times. right I think everyone on this podcast has probably said that. I should have bought it earlier. I knew about it. I ignored it. and But with Ethereum, it was this idea of a global computer, this idea of commoditizing the infrastructure and and really offering that as a solution to all of the problems that stem from the fact that we have privatized infrastructure for the internet today right in Web2. And so it it didn't take long. right We started going to meetups. I started making friends. I met my co-founder, Steven. We ended up being neighbors, incidentally, um or coincidentally.
00:04:09
Speaker
um And yeah, by 2017, we were meeting on a regular basis to talk and learn and teach each other about crypto. I have notes about ideas that I had even back then. I'm like, that would have never worked. This clearly was you not understanding this. um But by 2019, we had tried to build enough. We had done enough hackathons that I thought, hey, this is I think this is next. I think this is really what i have kind of what I want my next step to be. um I had always more or less been an entrepreneur. like I always liked working for myself. I always preferred it. um I've worked for other people largely because it's a great way to learn.
00:04:47
Speaker
um and i Straight out of college, I tried to export tequila from Mexico to Europe and quickly learned that I was not in a position to export tequila from Mexico to Europe and immediately started trying to, okay, I'm not ready to do my own thing. I need to go learn from someone else. right So then I started working for other people. um But you know after four or five years of working for other people for the second or third time in my life, Web3, it made perfect sense. So that those skills that you you basically took up everything before Web3, how did that transfer to Web3? A lot of it didn't. But um but I will say this, I've i've changed
Career Transitions and Learning from Failures
00:05:28
Speaker
industry a lot. um you know Funny enough, like
00:05:32
Speaker
Coming to Europe, I think it's one of the most surprising things that ah one of the things that surprises people the most ah when they meet me. is you know They go, ah how are you in Web3? What did you study? I go, I studied history and economics. Okay, how does that apply to Web3? It doesn't. Okay, so then what did you do professionally? Well, I used to export tequila. I used to work for a restaurant group. I used to own a restaurant. I used to do commercial real estate development. like I used to do venture capital and I go, how does any of that transfer into Web3? um
00:06:04
Speaker
What you learn from jumping industries so many times is kind of the the universal themes that just comes from running an organization, from running a business, um and from understanding that. um Obviously, there's there's some ramp up time. right like trying to manage a construction project after only having managed you know large-scale hospitality type stuff. It's, hey, I'm an electrician. You're not an electrician. You can't manage me. right And then little by little, you start learning from them. right and that's kind of um I think that was kind of the... I've kind of standardized what that process is for me. right So you you learn from the experts, you learn that can you have them teach you, you ask the right questions, and then you get to a point where you can start actually engaging them creatively and making those wheels turn. And by the time you're ready to first teach other people,
00:06:58
Speaker
ah what their skill set is, right at least interactively. um And then second, you can start sequencing and scheduling their work. like That makes a very big difference. um right And so the first time I worked in a kitchen, I thought I was going to be a marketing manager. They put me in a chef's coat and had me quartering chickens and washing dishes for four weeks. right Thank you, NVIDIA's Employee Cafe. Here we are. um But what it did was it got me to a position where I understood what their workflow was, how they operated, how much time they needed, what was what were the actual requirements for them to succeed, which then allows you to to manage.
00:07:37
Speaker
um So yeah, I mean, communication and learning and curiosity, I think are the two things that you get from jumping between all of these industries so often. I would almost say adaptability as well, because youre you since you jump, you're a chameleon. that yeah kind of yeah You get all that influx, so you kind of restructure. It's like, okay, what's important? How does it work? And if there's enough, then it the the the processing of the self is an expertise, right? Yeah. yeah the ah I did not take the straight and narrow path here. Let's put it that way. ah this is
00:08:08
Speaker
I feel like you and every other guest we've ever had has been like, it's not a straight line, you know? And I like that about Web3. Everyone's got a story. Everyone's like done stuff. Yeah. And then you're like, all right, you know what, i'm going I'm going to build a company. So you're found into like how how did that start? Like, well, how would the early days of int into like because how old is into right now? So into technically started February of 2022, just at the end of that bull market.
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah. um But Intu really started with a project that my you know CTO, Steven and myself, we started this project called where? G-U-E-R dot.co. um And we had the good fortune of kicking that off in December of 2019. two Which means that fundraising by March of 2020 was a non-starter. And so there was that good like year and a half, two years where we were trying to do this thing. We were trying to basically... I mean, I was working full-time. Steven was preparing to come into Web3 full-time. And our our thesis was
00:09:24
Speaker
The infrastructure for Web3 isn't there. right This promise of the global computer commoditized infrastructure just isn't there. We're missing access management, we're missing identity, we're missing encryption. We were so dependent on what had come before
Building and Marketing Web3 Solutions
00:09:41
Speaker
that the dream, it just we couldn't realize it. And so we tried starting to build that. And and that led me to start and auditing cryptography courses and going to meetups that were very mathematically heavy.
00:09:55
Speaker
um Practical mathematics is not my strong point. I've since become much better at theoretical mathematics. I can read white papers and understand them. Don't ask me to actually do the problems because we won't get anywhere. ah But through that experience with GWARE, we were approached to to solve private key storage for validators as a service. It was a very, very specific problem um because right you have infrastructure companies, gateway companies that want to provide this as a service for people that have Ethereum but don't want to manage their own equipment. ah But the hesitation, obviously, one of the major the major limitations for that was, well, now I have to trust you completely with which which is otherwise a large sum of money.
00:10:42
Speaker
and yeah And so at that point, we' we've been working a lot with very specific security tech like trusted execution environments. um And we came up with this idea and the more research that we did, the more we realized that, hey, this isn't just a problem for this very niche thing, there's actually kind of a global need for this that accounts and identity and addressing and private key management ah in Web3 is it's very primitive. It's very antiquated. It doesn't meet the expectations that a normal human being would have coming to what the new internet is. right I should be able to lose my password.
00:11:24
Speaker
right that That's a normal thing. I am human. I will make mistakes. And so that was really the impetus of Intu. was trying to like Understanding that there was this problem that Web3 was not very human-friendly and then taking this expertise that we had developed for the past several years working on things like infrastructure and encryption, um and then realizing that we had a pretty good solution for it. It was challenging, absolutely. right we We spent a good year, year and a half in research and development, but we made it. right We did it.
00:11:59
Speaker
that but That's a very good point, I think. right like you know um it's It's one of the challenges. I think that i think the first breakthrough is you realize, oh, shit, I actually have something. But I think you know what I've done for the last couple of years, I have something that I can actually productize, which makes sense. um at least that's that's why you and that's why yeah i'm I'm laughing because I think you're actually a step ahead of where I was back then. like We had a solution to a problem from a technical standpoint and we hadn't really considered how to turn it into a product. right and and that was That was a challenge in and of itself. ah But yeah, advice for for younger me would have been figure that out earlier. right
00:12:41
Speaker
It's a big issue that we've seen. like you know that this is not I think every startup that I'm talking to from a tech perspective, they they have amazing solutions to problems that either not yet exist or are not existing. right um which is on itself a challenge. It doesn't mean you're wrong. and It means that you you didn't find your product market fit. And sometimes there is no product market fit, which can be a massive problem. um Find it out if there are three years of funding and ah doing R and&D. you know like we've We've all heard the stories. But to your point, right? um You did about two years of R and&D in development.
00:13:19
Speaker
I think that was a challenge on in and of itself. like Can you tell us a little bit about that time, ah but what kind of challenges you were facing, but also the kind of breakthroughs, right? Because those those in in from our perspective, it's always you go super deep, but then the breakthroughs generally are also a lot bigger because you spend so much time overcoming these challenges. um yeah i mean so i mean Obviously, we we had some so very exciting tech breakthroughs, I think, for us. um
00:13:52
Speaker
being able to right So effectively what we're doing, we're taking existing technology, existing math. I don't want to go too deep into it on this podcast because that's not the audience. But we're taking things that were already out there, things that were already proven, things that larger, better funded companies were already using. ah But we're doing it in like this hybrid model, right where they were dependent on web 2 infrastructure in order to provide a web 3 service. um And so we we had these kind of guiding principles that This product should be able to exist in the absence of our organization. right And that we wanted this to be actually decentralized. and And that was really the innovation I think that we brought to the community and what makes Intu special.
00:14:36
Speaker
um is that it if Intu disappeared tomorrow, your products, the accounts that you created using our technology will continue to work. um And so it was it was very principled, maybe at times too principled. Going through that, we you know occasionally did cut some corners. like We had an API for a little bit just so that people could start building and start kind of feeling our way through that product market fit, um but then eventually knew that we had to come back. We knew that it wouldn't work. We knew that we didn't want to offer an API. We knew that we didn't want to have to rent infrastructure from right one of these big cloud companies. um the I think the the biggest
00:15:21
Speaker
maybe the most exciting breakthrough in all of this, was learning to communicate with the team, right taking these very abstract ideas and taking a team of very well-educated, very smart people and getting them to think outside of the box. right Oh, no, you can't do this because the math works this way. I'm like, there has to be a way that we can do this. What if we just take this piece from over here and this piece from over there and then we piece it together? Will that work? And then the answer first was always no. And then we get out a whiteboard, we kind of talk through it, communicate, document it, keep iterating on it. um And then eventually they're like, oh, okay, no, we we actually can do it this way. I never thought of doing it this way. This is a new thing.
00:16:05
Speaker
um And you know the first couple of times that was super exciting, but it got to a point where this was a habit. It's like, okay, this is this is the goal. This is what we're trying to do. yeah Let's go in a room. Let's get a whiteboard out. Let's figure this out. And sometimes it took a day. Sometimes it took a week. Sometimes it took a month. But we got there. And I think you know as an organization, that was really our strength was that you know things that were otherwise not possible, we were able to you know do um in the course of a year, year and a half it was great.
00:16:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's amazing. its You foster and and ah and research and development, but also I think a failing upward ah culture within a company which adds so much value because there's no ego, right? It's like, okay, let's figure this out. it's like No is always sometimes the answer, but let's first figure out if there's no other roads than no, right? And sometimes you still land on like, no, it's literally not possible. ah but But to your point, but I think it's very, If you give people the opportunity and the motivation, the perspective, then um no, it's just one of the 50 options that you have um as long as you're willing to look past what is conventional.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I will say this, we we never really found something that we ultimately decided was impossible. It's just we had to change our assumptions, right? We eventually got there. um But some of them took longer than others. But yeah, impossible, it just means you're not looking at it the right way, or you're assuming that something is true that maybe doesn't have to be, or you change the context, right?
Entrepreneurship and Leadership Insights
00:17:38
Speaker
and Yeah, absolutely. So last anecdote before we head into ah your advice, like top 10 advice. um You know, as as a founder, hardship, it's it's hardship and innovation, right? Like, I think they're very, um if you you're if you're an innovator, hardship is around you, right? Challenges are around you. um Do you have any personal perspectives or stories or anecdotes around
00:18:05
Speaker
um ah like personal challenges and how that added value or or actually changed your perspective to leadership and innovation. I'm a Catholic man. I was born for suffering. this is is my life like
00:18:22
Speaker
um and that's That's the first hardship. Let's talk about the second. I came into this world for hardship. a no I mean i i have ah have a track record of not necessarily making things easy for myself. um i like I like where I am today. and And I will say that I am better for those choices that I've made. um Sometimes in the in the short term, it doesn't feel that way. But looking back, it's like, i I'm good. um I think kind of generally speaking, I talked a lot about jumping industries.
00:18:53
Speaker
and the The first few times that I did that, that was that was hard. um right it was It was hard because I needed to connect with a new group of people. I couldn't bring a lot of that reputation, a lot of that community, and a lot of that expertise that I had been you know garnering for you know years before in another space to this new thing that I wanted to do. um A lot of times, that meant either one of two things. like You spent most of your time trying to convince people that you actually had a skill set that was usable for them.
00:19:30
Speaker
right like I grew up in Silicon Valley and I worked for restaurant groups for eight years. I should be able to work at Uber Eats type of thing. But then getting on a phone call or submitting a resume to someone like Uber Eats and they're like, oh, you have no relevant experience. Why would we ever consider you as an applicant? um the The other side of that would be learning to take personal responsibility either for yourself um or eventually for your company, for your team, for your organization. I think that's like the the biggest part of this. right So your options when you're changing industry are suck it up and try and convince people or network your way into that position that you want or start your own thing, know you're going to make mistakes, and really own those mistakes. um Yeah.
00:20:21
Speaker
you know even even when it's like a small change in industry, right going from working for corporate hospitality to owning my own restaurant. right Suddenly, the the gravity, the weight of that sense of ownership is multiplied tenfold. right it's not I don't have the the corporate parachute to fall back on if I make a mistake. This is people's jobs, people's lives, my business, our capital, but my reputation on the line. In going through all of these experiences, I think the the one thing that I really learned
00:20:55
Speaker
is that you know In your mind, you always say, okay, like if I get to this point, this is as bad as it's going to get. This is the bottom. like I've never actually found that bottom. like It's always further away than you think. ah yeah you know the The risk is always it's daunting. You're looking at it in the face. You're looking down that cliff and thinking, okay, this is going to hurt. um But it's never actually been that bad. and yeah and and so Don't let the i guess the fear of failure hold you back from trying to do it ah because that i mean i've I've done this enough times that like the bottom is always further away than you think. um it's never It's never as pressing as as you'd you'd like to think.
00:21:39
Speaker
always that that's like Your resilience is a lot higher than you think it is. It's just almost never being tested to the point where you're like, oh shit, I'm not resilient enough. there's like Trust me, you can go a lot harder and a lot deeper. You just never get to that point. but And then it makes the the highs so much higher too, right? Because you've you've come so much further. yeah And it's i for me, it makes my life, generally speaking, more enjoyable. Yeah. yeah it's like it's People always say you start from zero. It's like, no, if you're that deep, you start at minus 20. But then if you go to plus 10, it's a delta of 30, right? like That's massive. but But if you look for baseline zero, you go to 10. It's 10. It's still a a win, but it's it's a different it feels different yeah yeah for sure.
00:22:23
Speaker
So you know when you innovate and and of like as a leader you are innovating, obviously are there any insights on innovation and leadership that
Defining Web3 and Strategic Advice for Founders
00:22:32
Speaker
ah ah you see in in building into and building your your ventures over the years that have similarities in in this specific market if you're building? um Or any perspective that you say like, hey, that's something that I didn't I didn't realize until it was a lot like a year, two years into it, I was like, shit. ah That's something that makes a lot of sense. Two things. um One, defining... I'm going to provide a definition of Web3. For a lot of people, Web3 was kind of coined by blockchain people. So a lot of people refer to blockchain stuff when they're talking about Web3. And i'm I'm guilty of this as well. I have a tendency to...
00:23:15
Speaker
limit our industry to a specific thing. And I think that that is probably the worst thing we can do when looking at like the market. Because you're only looking for success with your immediate peers and colleagues and you get into this echo chamber very quickly. um So i've I've really made it a point over the past nine months, year, to start looking at web3. as all of the emerging technologies. right Going back to 2017, when Ethereum is going to be the next generation of the internet, blockchain is going to be the next generation of the internet,
00:23:49
Speaker
leaving the blockchain part out of it and then just saying, all of this emerging technology, this will be the next generation of the internet. um And so that you know very naturally lumps in things like AI right for computing. ah Blockchain can be the infrastructure stuff. ah Metaverse soon someday, like it probably won't be called the Metaverse anymore, but like we are innovating in new ways to interact with digital technologies. And the kind of those three things coming together, new interface, new infrastructure, new compute, that's Web3 in whatever form that takes. um And that's the same thing that happened with Web2. Yeah, we call it the cloud, but really, it was the introduction of broadband internet and Amazon Web Services, and then later EC2, and then Lambda, and all these other technologies that made YouTube possible.
00:24:42
Speaker
right those people that were building is like, oh, no, I do you know data center infrastructure. I do you know RAID redundancy. like That was their industry, but really what they were building was this larger thing. yeah um i mean Specifically for blockchain tech, um there's ah there's a tendency to look at token prices as kind of your your your north star for what market we're in. And and I think that that's wrong, especially as a founder. Tokens can be up, tokens can be down, but the reality is that a lot of the things that influence token prices have nothing to do with the technology that we're building. And that's also why we have like this incredible volatility. So unless... I mean, we're always fundraising, but unless you're you know particularly exposed to token prices,
00:25:32
Speaker
The reality is that we've kind of always been in a bull market. The technology has continued to improve, and it's improving faster, and it's being harder to keep up with. When we talk about market, especially with other founders, we don't look at, hey, Ethereum's up, Bitcoin's up. It's more, hey, did you see what these guys did with this tech? did you Have you thought about what you could now do with this? right um These guys have now a network for GPU templates that is cheaper than running it on Amazon. And so you can do AI on the blockchain faster. How does that impact your business? um And in that sense, right we we get very, very quickly to a conversation about timing.
00:26:16
Speaker
right which I think is really more of what this market question is about. It's about finding product market fit. Product market fit comes back down to timing. What does the market need now? And do I have a solution for it now? And well yeah and can we monetize it? right I think that that's the the age old question in this industry. But I think this this loops it very well into um the the the next step, which is ah you know the the top 10 advice that we always ask from our guests.
00:26:47
Speaker
um for for our listeners and viewers. I think you already gave a couple of really good nuggets here, but I think, you know, let's let's let's hit that topic because I think there's a lot of value ah in in in just these 10 points. And i what I said, you already gave probably like another 10 just before. so It's all the suffering then. it's's
00:27:09
Speaker
For this next section, advice for startup founders, this is where we've sourced questions from our community, essentially to to get the answers from experts like yourself, James. Okay. The first question is on strategic alignment, essentially, how do you ensure that your company's operational strategy aligns with the long term business goals? How do you plan that out in the fast moving web three space? Absolutely. um i'd I'd like to just... I think you guys did a really good job of this, so I want to call it out on the podcast. The context for these 10 points, um these are founders without significant reputation, capital or connection. So we're really talking about like early stage founders, like what's that zero to one? Maybe even coming from a different industry, right? Maybe you're coming from web two or coming from something else and you want to jump in.
00:27:57
Speaker
um I think when it when it comes to strategic alignment to your question, um you know we in a I've definitely done this, right focused more on the tech than maybe the product. And I think if I could go back and do that differently, I would say don't start with a product. Don't start with a solution. Really, really, really focus on that problem. And once you have that problem, kind of work your way backwards. and say, Can I solve this problem in an amount of time where this problem will still be relevant? um And if the answer is yes, then you found it. And if not, then keep thinking about it. um Something I see a lot that comes from kind of like the web to right move fast and break stuff mentality um is that people will start with the product itself. They have their problem and they come out with a product, and then they continually iterate the product
00:28:55
Speaker
in an attempt to find product market fit. And where that works really well in Web 2, because you have all of this, again, commoditized infrastructure, and you have the ability to push and deploy an A-B test very, very quickly. That's just not the reality for Web 3. A lot of what we do is expensive. A lot of what we do takes time. And either you're compromising on the core values that make web3 different and potentially better than web2. Or you're just building a cloud-based solution that has a little web3 just put on top. right This isn't butter for your toast. This is a solution to a problem. um So when you're thinking strategically,
00:29:39
Speaker
right It's timing and its solution. And can I solve this problem in the amount of time that it would still be relevant? I think is really what to come back to. And then yeah product product will come, product market fit, you'll find it. But but we have to build a little bit differently in Web3 just because of the nature of what we're doing. it's a It's more akin to hardware development than it is to software development in a lot of ways. Cool. Nice. All right. Question number two, key metrics. So what are you looking at when, like specifically for operational metrics, like what should the North star be for a web three startup? What should you monitor regularly? How do you know whether, you know, on your rag status, it's, it's red or amber or green. But when, when it comes to metrics, especially in the early days, I think there's, there's a few things. One.
00:30:31
Speaker
Communication, I think it's not a metric you hear very often, um but setting a cadence and establishing good habits for communication and check-in and being able to communicate effectively as a team what you're building and where you are in that process. um Because of the nature of an early stage startup, you're going to have a lot of failures. And if you don't have the ability to document and communicate, ah documentation being part of that communication process, if you don't have the ability to do that and share that information with the rest of the team, measuring productivity is kind of worthless. right Because you can show productivity. right I checked off so many tickets in this week. I completed my sprint. I put in so many hours. right There's all these other metrics that you can put towards
00:31:19
Speaker
building your solution. um But if you don't have the proper communication behind that, it it falls flat. And what you end up doing is spending a lot of time running around in circles or building in a direction that you didn't actually mean to. You just found out kind of too late. um so So yeah, when when we're really starting off early, right when it's going from a founding team of 2 or 3 people, and you're going to 5 people, 7 people, 9 people, it's continually checking in with your team. and making sure that those check-ins are valuable and that you're actually sharing information in a way that's both effective and useful. um because yeah If not, all these productivity metrics that you'll see people recommend, you know setting KPIs and tickets and sprints and all these things, it ends up being worthless. um Any other productivity side metrics? Should the communication be good? Does it work?
00:32:16
Speaker
I mean, jokes aside, excuse me. um
00:32:21
Speaker
But yeah, does it work? um there was There was a lot of times that we were tracking like how much code did you actually write? How much research did you actually do? How much did you actually commit to the GitHub? um But at the end of the day, if if it doesn't work, that that goes right out the window, right? Especially when you're heavily into research and development. um we we'd have team members who their bias would naturally drive them more towards either research or development. And so you'd get people that would spend a lot of time researching and it's like, hey, boss, like I went through 14 white papers this week. Isn't that incredible? And I go, absolutely. But does it work? like Do you have code for it? like does this Is this something that's actually usable? Or on the flip side, hey, boss, I you know committed 15 things to the GitHub this week.
00:33:12
Speaker
Does it work? Does it do what we need it to do? Or is it just code for the sake of code? um And so again, kind of mean it's not a metric, but um always checking in whether you're doing research or you're doing development and keeping that in mind of, is this actually meeting the expectations of what we needed this step to be? It's a lot of about about context in that matter, right? It's like numbers in and of itself mean nothing if there's no context to it. You can, as you said, like commit 20 things to GitHub, but if it doesn't there's no narrative or context behind it, then you know that can be 10 or 20 really small things or 20 really big things. but
00:33:51
Speaker
The metric in and out itself doesn't say anything. I think that one comment that you did, that one piece of work that you did, it can you've maybe done and a month of work in that. So that's context as well. and And coming back down to like, does it work or to your point context, you know can someone else use this? yeah Is this at a point where I can now sequence this into what's ultimately going to become the solution? right It doesn't matter if you're a plumber, it doesn't matter if you laid 100 feet of copper piping in all the walls. If it doesn't work, then the drywall guy can't come in and close up the walls. So even though you did the time, even though you did the work,
00:34:32
Speaker
if it's not actually completed if it's not actually achieving turning the faucet on, right then the next person in line can't start doing their work. um And so I think, especially in the early stages, metrics are important. You do need to measure, ah but keeping, to your point, context kind of in front of mind and making sure that you are make sure the team is in sync and that your sequencing is as tight as possible. What you don't want is people waiting on other people and getting hung up on your
Team and Resource Management in Startups
00:35:00
Speaker
dependencies. um I'm a big fan of Gantt charts, dependencies, and kind of sequencing things out. I think this is
00:35:07
Speaker
Whether it's in a kitchen or in a construction project or in a tech company, it's it's important, right? Things come sequentially. Work in parallel when you can, but at some point, right you need to start having these interactions between two different fields of expertise. and Absolutely. Okay, number three, resource allocation. This is a big, a big debatable one. um Could you share your insights on how you'd effectively allocate resources in the early stages of a web3 startup to maximize growth and sustainability? So when most people think of resource allocation, they think of capital.
00:35:43
Speaker
i and And I wholeheartedly agree capital is incredibly important. I think Charlie, you told me this, the number one job of a CEO is don't run out of money. right um on this yeah and I mean, one of one of three. um But I think even more important than capital is time. right and And how you allocate your time and how you stay focused and making sure that you're not you know chasing white rabbits all the time is incredibly important.
00:36:15
Speaker
um a big part of that. And and I don't and don't see this enough, I think, especially from early, early stage founders. It's get out of your house. Get out of your office. right People try to build in a vacuum because it's comfortable. But what that does is it removes you from the context of what it is that you're trying to solve. And so I don't care if you're working in a co-working. I don't care if you're going to meetups. I don't care if you're just meeting up with other colleagues that you know have an opinion on the work that you're doing in a restaurant or a cafe or a bar or a park or whatever. You need to create context for these kinds of discussions outside of what your work environment is so that you can really
00:37:01
Speaker
keep in focus what it is that you're doing all this work for um and really managing that time great effectively. um the um The second thing outside of capital is definitely like your your team, right? ah Human resources, a horrible way of naming it. But effectively, how effectively are we using The true resource, right? That money is translated into expertise. How are we putting that to work? um And the reality is that people need to stay motivated. People need to stay focused. People need to understand what you're building towards.
00:37:38
Speaker
um i think It was an eye-opening moment. I think it was HCC last year. We did a whole debrief after the after the the conference with you know our team, which was at that point, largely research and development. It was a bunch of engineers in a room and me. And how did you think it went? how did you know What were your conversations like? Who did you speak with? And after about 15, 20 minutes of having this debrief, The one thing that I learned was that I hadn't communicated where we had taken the marketing and the communication and the messaging and the product market fit to the engineering team. And I had really ineffectively allocated those resources to that conference. right Everyone had a week where they weren't coding, they weren't doing what they were great at. And instead, they were out here promoting the project and talking about what we were building.
00:38:31
Speaker
But the way they were talking about it was either very specific to what they were building or something that we had ah like a narrative or a message that we had abandoned a year ago. right um And so keeping the team up to date, communicating with them effectively, keeping them motivated, um that's really they they're your best advocates. And so then the the capital part kind of trickles into how do you allocate your time? How do you allocate your team? right I mean, outside of that as an early, early stage startup, you really shouldn't have very much like a lot of overhead. You shouldn't be throwing big events. You shouldn't be paying for fancy lawyers. Your accountant shouldn't be really much more than a bookkeeper. right You want to keep all of that as lean as possible and ah and yeah focus on on your team and your time. All right. Well, this files in nicely into... I need to kind of answer this a little bit. But team building, question four. um When you're looking for team members, what are the qualities you're looking for?
00:39:26
Speaker
And how do you then foster a culture that supports that? Innovation, yes, but that execution, layer let's get stuff done. Culture, when it comes to early stage startups, is interesting, especially when you're like very, very early, that zero to one. um i've I've seen a lot of founders focus a lot on culture. Who do we want to be? I'm going to spend a week working on a document that details and outlines what kind of company we are. right We are ping pong tables and bright colors, that kind of thing. And at the end of the day, but you can try and influence that culture as much as you want.
00:40:04
Speaker
The culture will end up being the sum of the people that you are working with and the way that you interact. um And so ah particularly when you're hiring, right make sure that this is a person who is, at least for me, right not afraid to fail. not afraid not afraid to communicate that failure, not afraid to raise their hand when they have a problem, right who's willing to ask for help, um and willing to learn. When you're trying to do something differently, they're going to have to get outside of their comfort zone. And if you find people that kind of align to these know driving values, the things that really make early, early creative
00:40:45
Speaker
stage startups work, then then your culture will come naturally because of that. Obviously, once you start getting to 10, 15, 20 people, then you want to start solidifying and documenting and standardizing that culture. right You need to be able to provide that culture as a directive for your HR manager, for future hires, ah for your marketing team and the way that you communicate, right the the tone and the voice that your company collectively has. um But at the early days, don't spend too much time trying to define what that culture is. Let it grow organically. Take the best parts of it um and then reinforce those good behaviors, right those good habits with your team. um So I think a big part of that is hiring slow and making sure that they fit, that they meet.
00:41:30
Speaker
kind of what that is, not just from a ah technical expertise or a professional expertise standpoint, but also from what's effectively an airport test. right that Will I like to sit down and actually have a conversation with this person? um yeah In the event that you mess that up, and this is something that you know coming from a corporate background, my my instinct is always to train and to try and help improve. But ah you know firing fast is something that I you know definitely could have improved on and will definitely treat it differently now. um As a startup, again, resource allocation, you don't have the bandwidth to carry dead weight. um So if you're confident that you've given this person the tools and the resources that they need to succeed, you've given them purpose, you've given them plan, um you've given them goals that they can actually achieve,
00:42:19
Speaker
you know and in an ideal situation, goals that you set together, right expectations that you set together that you decided that were mutually achievable. um If you've given them a good shot, 30 days, 40 days, right something very tangible, I want to see difference. And if that's not the case, then you know It doesn't work. um And so yeah, build your team up, hire slow, fire fast, trust your instincts. um But also be cognizant of the fact that you know it might be also you. right Make sure you're not the problem in the team and make sure that you're managing that effectively. Because I've seen both happen. right Oh, fire fast. Oh, it's not working. Just fire. No, that's not right. Make sure that you've taken a step back, really looked at yourself, had that open channel of communication with your employees, with your team.
00:43:08
Speaker
um and um right and then get there. Accelerating through now, question five, operational tools and practices. um i What are the tools that you'd recommend from an early stage zero to one founder? Is there a differential for Web3 to traditional text startups? so Yes, because of the decentralized nature of Web3 and blockchain, right whether you like it or not, you will always be managing, to some degree, a remote team. i ah The chances of you having everyone in the same place at the same time are either non-existent or incredibly expensive. And it's not something that as an early stage startup you want. um If you did build your team with the people that are immediately available to you locally, like physically available to you, ah you're probably missing out on expertise that you should have looked for elsewhere or you're spending too much for it where you are currently.
00:44:06
Speaker
um and And this needs to be translated into your operational tools and practices. This needs to be translated into your systems and your processes. um So again, don't overthink the processes. like Don't spend a month setting up a CRM or ah you know a Gantt chart or a ticket management system. like Use what's off the shelf. work with your team, kind of work out those kinks. And as long as you establish a regular cadence, right you start developing habits. um And you again, back to expectations and communication. right If you use the tools, the way that you use the tool is more important than the tool that you have. um And because we're remote first,
00:44:50
Speaker
That kind of has to be your baseline. You can't be like, oh, we have 90% of the office in person and then we're going to do this for this other 10%. You really need to be managing for the people that are the other 10% because especially in Web3, that's the way that it's going. I don't think we're going to see a consolidation of blockchain or Web3 engineers in one place. right The idea of a hub is somewhere that you go, but not somewhere that you live. but You fly in and out of San Francisco, New York, Austin, Paris, Berlin, Lisbon. right These are places that you don't necessarily have to live, but that you need to visit frequently. Your day-to-day operations need to come down to
00:45:29
Speaker
tickets, regular meetings, rhythm more than anything. Charlie, I don't think you wanted me to list specific tools that we've used, um but you know find what works. mirrorra and yeah like up jira all these yeah asana I've used all of them. you know and to To a certain degree, like Some teams just have like an adverse reaction to some things like Jira. People don't... and know there's like Oh, Jira is not cool anymore. right like So if you try and to choose Jira, it's like, oh, I left web two because I didn't want to use Jira anymore. Okay, that's fine. We'll use ClickUp. We'll use Airtable. We'll use whatever. But if the if the learning curve is easy enough and people use it effectively, that's more important. um But structure, process, and cadence. I think cadence more than anything with a remote team.
00:46:21
Speaker
Oh, brilliant. What are some of the most significant operational challenges that you faced when you've been scaling your team? Probably should have saved my story about communication after ECC for this. Well, I mean, communication referencing that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the the first thing would be communication, right? um When you're three people, it's very easy to hop on a phone call whenever and share information. When you're 10 people, you need to have a daily call, 15, 20 minutes, just for everyone to share information and then find out if you need to have an additional conversation after that. If you're 25, 30 people, can't do a 15-minute call anymore, right? Now you're breaking into departments, but you need to bring everyone together.
00:47:05
Speaker
right? and Probably once a week. And then once a month, do a big milestone, strategic. This is our roadmap. This is our plan. This is our vision. This is what's changed conversation. um So again, setting that cadence for communication in scaling helps you understand where you have room to add further things as your team grows. And you can continue to scale that level of communication. Once that happens organically, you turn it into a process. right you You turn it into a system. I expect you to be on this phone call every single day at 5.30pm Central European Time.
00:47:41
Speaker
This is non-negotiable. This is what I expect to have from you. Three wins, three things you need help with, and then a report on your tickets. Done. right But first three people, not so important. 10 people, much more important. 20 people, absolutely critical. um And the only way that you'll get there at scale is by constantly, again, communicating and saying, guys, where are we missing? Where are we dropping the ball? And then using that feedback to improve that continually, to iterate on your processes. um Just because you have a process that worked a year ago doesn't mean it's going to work today. um And so you need to continuously update that as you scale. um If it feels like there's friction, you probably need to re-examine it. Right. Now we're getting to the more Web 3 side of things. Okay. Partnership development in a Web 3 environment, partnerships can be crucial. um How do you identify and cultivate strategic partnerships that propel your business forward? it
00:48:38
Speaker
ah Don't be a dick. Step one.
00:48:46
Speaker
No, I think, again, especially in tech, it it's very easy to to shy away from being active in a community. ah When it comes to partnership development, you you need to nurture that side of who you are. like i I am instinctively introverted, but I've become much, much better at going to conferences and just walking with people. Say, hi, I'm James. What do you do? What what do you do in the space? right That question that we all hate to answer 50 million times over the course of four days. But you get good at it. And then once you get past that, you can say, is this something that I want to continue having a conversation with? Is this someone I want to share my telegram with? Or am I going to walk away from that?
00:49:25
Speaker
um So you have to go to these events. And I understand that for especially a lot of early stage founders, conferences can seem like a distraction. And in many cases, they are. like When we were building very heavily, I took probably six or seven months where I didn't go to conferences, period. My job was with my team. ah But the world moves on without you. right And then you have to go back and nurture those relationships again. So even if it's one conference a quarter, even if it's you know just meetups in your local city or you know doing a hackathon or something that's online or virtual, participating in that community one way or another helps you maintain those partnerships that will will eventually become commercial partnerships. right This is a person that I met three years ago, and then you run into them in Istanbul. And it's like, oh, what are you doing now? Oh, I'm doing this now. Oh, wow, we could really work with that. You have a framework, we have an infrastructure, we should go to the market together. um So getting out of your house is super, super important.
00:50:25
Speaker
um And the the second one, it's a little cringe for me because it's like one of these textbooks. I read it in a book sometime and when I'm starting a business, I need to have mentors. right mentors Everyone's talking about mentorship. mentorship um I want to emphasize that like this isn't like Aristotle sitting on a rock type of mentorship like that you really need. What you need to do is you need to, again, build that community and know that when I need to learn about cryptography, I go to this guy. When I need to talk about tokens or product market fit or marketing or communication, you have people that you've met in this process
00:51:05
Speaker
that help you get to the right partnerships that you need for the business.
Decision-Making and Risk Management Strategies
00:51:10
Speaker
It's that personal relationship. Rely on your community to filter that for you. um It makes it a lot less transactional as well. like I know a marketing guy marketing guy recommends that I go talk to these four companies to solve this problem. And then from that, you can have, one, a warm introduction. But two, you're you're already You're not wasting your time. Again, the most important resource that you have as a startup founder, you're not wasting time talking to people that are either too big for you, too small for you, or just otherwise don't provide a good service. ah It's been filtered through some degree of of recommendation.
00:51:46
Speaker
um So mentors, if we want to call them that, advocates, resources, but these are experts that you've cultivated because you left the house. right um And I think that's that's super, super important. um And sometimes it's just not talking about web3. We're all human beings too. got a bed There's a lot of you know food and beverage guys, a lot of music guys, a lot of folks that like i't know bouldering or skiing or whatever it might be, Warhammer. right like It's okay to not talk about crypto stuff with with with the community. um A lot of times, those are some of the better communities that you have. like ah One of my most active telegram groups, it's just guys that like smoking cigars that work in crypto and we meet up at conferences. right
00:52:33
Speaker
and Yeah, it's easy. right It's an easy thing to bond over, but then you start getting those partnerships and then they help you filter and then you get the commercial stuff as as as a part of that. um Caveat, this probably works right now. web3. I can only assume that as we mature, and we are maturing very quickly, that this will you know stop being the case. right But right now, everyone's still kind of an OG. It's still very early days. um And I mean, that's my playbook for right now. Cool. All right. Exciting to the end of the 10 questions, risk management.
00:53:12
Speaker
We're going to ask you to quick-fire these because of time. Yes, sir. Risk management. Can you discuss your approach to risk management, particularly in relation to technology and the market volatility of Web3? You can't control the volatility. That's fine. right Ignore it. It's always going to be up or down, good or bad. um When I make decisions, I always start with the fact that there is no such thing as a perfect decision. I need to make the best decision ah with the information that I have available to me. um And usually that is, I'm going to take a day to analyze and collect as much information as I can if it's a big problem a week.
00:53:52
Speaker
It's a huge problem, like a legal thing, maybe a month. But set a timeline for yourself. And at the end of that time, with the information that you have, make the best decision that you can. right as ah As a founder, as a CEO, ah your job is to always make the best decision within the context that you're in. ah There's no such thing as perfect information. Great. Nine, learning from failure. Could you share an example of a past operational failure and what you learned from it that could be useful for a new stuff emerging technology startup founder? A past operational failure. This feels a bit like that interview question of tell me a time you overcame a challenge. Right now, Charlie, being on this podcast.
00:54:36
Speaker
have
00:54:39
Speaker
Okay. um there was There was a period of time where we were moving too fast. um And you know again, the the the romantics is the romanticization of a founder is you know you move fast and you do things quickly and but things will break. And the reality was that we were moving much faster than we needed to in retrospect. At the time, we were so close to the problem that it felt like we just need to push, push, push, push, push. um And at the end of the day, the right answer would have been taking a step back.
00:55:17
Speaker
um pulling the wheels a little bit and then making better decisions, right providing yourself the space for perspective. um As an example, We had committed to launching within six to eight months of fundraising. um And so, ETH Denver came around and we were like, well, on the timeline, we said we're going to be ready. So we're going to do everything that we can to be a sponsor at ETH Denver this year. And so we invested money, we invested time, we invested resources. We flew the team out. And in retrospect, yes, it was a great conference. yes we
00:55:54
Speaker
I mean, by all conference measures succeeded, we got what we wanted out of it. But as a company, as a product, we weren't ready for that. like That investment would have been much, much more useful six months later, a year later. um And so just being too close to the problem or trying to keep yourself to a timeline that you set a year ago or six months ago that is no longer a reality, It's okay to push timelines out as long as you have a good reason for it and then allocate those resources after the fact.
00:56:26
Speaker
um Right? Recognizing the difference between you know not being ready and not being ready to try. Sometimes you're just not ready and the trying can go away. right at the On the flip side, there's a lot of founders that don't try at all because they feel like they're not ready when in reality they are. And so you need that perspective. You need to step back so that you can learn from your failures. But yeah, like Eith Denver, I'm not going to say it's a failure, but it's definitely a learning opportunity. right of just allocation of resources. Okay. Final question. Advice for founders. What is a piece of evergreen of advice that you would offer someone starting their journey as a Web3 startup founder today? ah with With no connections,
00:57:11
Speaker
No capital, no higher reputation. yeah ah and I've said this so many times, communication, communication communication community know community secondly, um and then really just emphasizing those connections, even if they don't seem like they're important. Right? you You are solving a problem. right When you're talking about part product market fit, you're solving a problem for a specific group of people. And your hope is that this but product market fit, that the problem that you're solving, that there is enough people that share in that problem and that desire your solution, that you know it's worth it as a business to be there. um And if you don't actively interact with the people that you're solving that problem for,
00:57:57
Speaker
You're never going to find product market fit. i um Don't solve other people's problems. Solve a problem that you share in as part of them. and I like it. That's great. All right. So now at that portion wherere where Thomas and I actually get to jump in. a We're doing the brainstormings, foundational business practices from an experienced CEO. I think foundational business practice, we we did cover some of that, but I think there's a lot to touch upon. Right. All right, so i'll I'll float this out to you guys then.
00:58:33
Speaker
um i was ah I was having a conversation with a founder yesterday, um who is admittedly a little longer in the tooth and eye. He's gone through a few of these. right He was early telco, early SaaS. Now he's web 3. He's been here in the in the space for a while. um And we were talking about ah some hard decisions that I have to make as a CEO, right mentor, friend, this guy I've eaten barbecue with in Austin. Yeah. um
00:59:03
Speaker
And ah a good thing that he said to me was, if you're unsure what you're trying to do as a CEO, right just think about it from your board's perspective. Even if you don't have a board, right use that as a reference point that if the the behavior that I took was analyzed by people that had a financial interest in my business and all of the emotions and the operations and the practical stuff went away. And I was just looking, did this person, did this founder, did this CEO make the best possible decision in this context?
00:59:38
Speaker
If you can answer that question, then that's pretty much where your answer is. um And I thought that that was really insightful because even though you might be skirting, right you're in some gray zones, you might be hurting some feelings, you might be doing some hard calls. If you can go back and say, i didn't enrich myself artificially like or unnecessarily um and provided where the company was and the situation that we were in, I made the best possible decision. I know you guys both also share leadership roles in your various organizations. How does that sit with you guys? I like it. um I think
01:00:14
Speaker
I also think it's pretty, so it's interesting because a lot of people say something similar in parallel. So I've never seen that, that YouTube of Matthew McConaughey is like, who's your hero? It's like, it's me in five years. I have not seen that. na say So he said, it's a similar thing. It's like, who who would you like? Who's your hero? It's me in five years. And then the mentor kind of sees him five years later and goes, So who's your hero? And he goes, it's it's are you your hero yet? And he's like, not even close. It's me in five years from now, right? And you use that as a guiding light as to who you want to be. And I think in terms of decision making, you can be your own worst critic, yeah but also if you if you model who you want to be and where you're going and like what that would look like for you and you speak to future you and you say, well, what do I do in this instance?
01:01:10
Speaker
It's, it's also quite like a useful conversation to have, or at least it's, it's something that I occasionally do. Yeah. I, I've often asked people that have no. They have, and there is an impact on the decision for them, but they don't directly know. I just throw the decision at them or like the ideas. What do you think? And that has been engineers, it has been project managers, it has been, you know, everybody I've worked with. I'm like, hey, we were we're sitting with this this particular challenge. This is one of the solutions that we think about. What do you think?
01:01:42
Speaker
And um generally you get back, well, why are you asking me? So because you have a a perspective that is far removed from the problem. So you look, and and it doesn't mean that your, the solution that you think of, or that there are, there are, feedback that you get is always valuable, but it's fresh ice from somebody completely completely different well who is still aligned in your business. um And i've I've come to some really interesting outcomes sometimes. so I was like, shit, I didn't even even think of that because it was so close to the problem. It's a curse of knowledge that you have. You're like, oh, yeah, but I know this. So i i this is the best way of solving it. And then somebody is like, well, that while it's a great way of solving it, have you thought of exploring this area? Shit.
01:02:23
Speaker
Yeah, and then it's a whole different different way. So um I think it's always making making the right decisions is really hard. And I think being humble, that that's always, for me, has been very valuable. generally made the better decisions. right like And that sometimes meant that things took longer. um But I was like, no, this is probably the better decision long term because I have three different perspectives from three different people in the business. And if I com combine that somehow, yes, this will be a longer track. But i'll the outcomes for them and myself are probably a lot higher, better, smarter, whatever it is. And I think that often my
01:03:06
Speaker
Decisions are fueled by like this how i used to do project management and james we we spoke about it last time we see each other like. I always believed that i'm a translation layer right to whoever i work with like i translate what my clients want to my team i translate sometimes what my co founder want to myself or the other way around so a lot of my decisions are not. um my decisions, they're fueled, heavily influenced by others ah to ensure that it's the right decision to be made. It's not often that I'm standing alone, I'm like, okay, this is a decision I need to make alone. It's very often like, well, I i have all these perspectives, I bundle it down to something that makes sense to everybody. I will bear responsibility for that decision, but it's heavily influenced and heavily fueled by by other people's um perspectives. um' ah I'm a huge fan of collaborative
01:03:52
Speaker
decision making. And I think it's probably the the greatest trick to inspiring instead of leading. right like Lead has this connotation of like a dictatorship. This is coming down from on high and you have to do it. This used to happen in corporate all the time. Why do I have to do this? Because someone above me told me that I had to tell you and that's all I know. right yeah um But when you when you make decisions, especially critical ones collaboratively, um especially like with your founders, then you kind of have this sense of we all came to this conclusion together. Yes, like you said, Thomas, I bear the responsibility if this goes wrong, I will be responsible to my board, to my investors, to any other parties. um But at least you have that buy-in. And if you have the buy-in, that makes all the difference in whether or not your decision works or not.
01:04:39
Speaker
yeah or Or at least like defend yourself when it goes wrong, you feel that you're not standing alone. um Because the buy-in of the people, like that's what I found. You you you create that buy-in. And we did a lot with servant leadership, right? So you know I created my teams to be leaders like leaders on on the map. uh almost the american army tactics right like you have squats uh and you know yeah but you have a team lead but if they fall away then the next person needs to pick that up and i found if i brought that whole team into the decision and they're like yeah we we we think this is a great decision like cool let's do it that when let's say something went wrong in the project these guys would also be there to solve it together right it's not like oh yeah it was your decision no they they bought into that they agreed that this was the right decision so they will also help you if for whatever reason that decision that doesn't work out
01:05:27
Speaker
in the way it should work out. That, for us, was always very helpful and still is. like I always say, like look, engineers always should have a strong voice in what is valuable. um And if that's working with engineering for the last 10 years, ah those very often, like yeah you're the project manager. You need to make decisions. I'm like, no, no, no. My decisions are made by you. like I will narrate them. I will story tell them. I'll sell them to the client. But if you think this is the right way of doing it, then let's do it. like But then you also give that responsibility partially back because they're like, oh wait, so now if I say we're going to use architecture X, Y or Z and it goes wrong, it's on me. Is it? No, no, it's on all of us, but you are influential. So, you know, this is your buy. And so you're also asking them to to bring that ah responsibility and creates leaders. and And then as you said, like if you if you leave from the front end, if you inspire, then you often see that if you're
01:06:24
Speaker
If you're inspired right way, if you motivate the right way, they don't need leaders. um they will They will choose around leaders, they will run the forward. um They solve their problems and when there are problems that are not being able to solve by themselves, like you're stepping in and take that. right like That's the flexibility and leadership. you're the You're the guardrails. Always. Yeah, that's it. I love a good team member that has initiative. like there's There's few things. Initiative and creativity. like you know If you step up,
01:06:55
Speaker
I mean, I'd rather be the person that has to say, okay, dial it in a little bit. You're, you're going off the rails here, but yeah. yeah the way around Like I remember having an engineer and I was just like, I had a whole new plan for this client, really tough client and set it all up. And I, for 50 minutes explain what I think is best in this guy. It's bullshit, man. And I was like, ow, that hurts. I was like, explain. What do you think we should do? And within 10 minutes, he had a better idea. I was like, yeah, let's go with that. So it's also you know listening. And is that you're a leader doesn't mean that you know everything. It's very often that you don't know enough. um And and just that that's what also made me bad at humble sides. like This was an engineer. It was just a front-end engineer. It was nothing. It's not influential. It had a lot of and decision-making capabilities. But he's like, no, what you just said is bullshit.
01:07:44
Speaker
We're gonna do it. I think it's better to do this. way I'm like, I think that sounds like a really, really good idea. Let's do it. And we actually got great success of it. Right. So it's inspired, take the card reels, but also be humble enough to say, yeah, I don't know everything. um Please, please bring in your perspective, even though it's not your expertise, right? Because it was a process this discussion and he is an engineer. He was not really interested in the process, but he was, in the end, he was more interested in the process than I realized. So took that, build something out of it, success. I like it. There's some interesting stuff. I mean, so from, so I obviously come from like a bit more of a financial corporate, corporate you backgrounds.
01:08:22
Speaker
um as well and There's two things one one is completely get everybody on board and making the decision But make the goddamn decision and don't have the death by committee thing. You've got to step up like It's on me this this we're going that way. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like when it comes to putting that trigger it can be scary or intimidating, but I think it's important to to just do it and sometimes you can't ask people you just got to We're going this way. yeah Why? I'll tell you later, but we're going this way. In an ideal world, yeah, you get everybody to buy in for us. I completely agree. um I also like what you said about um bringing people along for the journey. I think that's great. Really, really strong.
01:09:09
Speaker
um to i mean you Is there a framework that you guys use for decision making? i know like People talk about the Eisenhower matrix all the time. You know, is it urgent? Is it important? I know Thomas, we've talked about this as well. Yeah. Like, is there a, is there something that, like a starting point we could, we could bring into the conversation for our audience? That's a, that's a hard one. I mean, like, I think like Eisenhower may like look at the Eisenhower matrix, what to do today, urgent, you know, we can, we can start there. That's a pretty sound one. Yeah. You'll you'll have to introduce me to the Eisenhower matrix.
01:09:45
Speaker
a lot of tanks, I think it was.
01:09:50
Speaker
I would always say, like coming from healthcare, care right? We've worked with patients with people, so I'm i'm trained to think in risk scenarios. but is What is option A, B, C? What are the risks over the next few days? And the reliability is a huge in that industry as well. If something goes wrong, it's like, ah Yeah, exactly. This guy now stands on the balcony that we do something wrong in the last 12 months, right? It's life or death. It's death. I'm trying to to think that way. And then if you plan out a business,
01:10:28
Speaker
um I will say, like, you know, uh, one of, one of my teams also goes, yeah, we're, we're in the business of killing babies, right? Like killing your, your startup baby. We have engineers coming up, like counters come to us with the the best next idea. We're like, nope, sucks. We can build you a better baby, but you know, um So I think that when it comes to decision making, it's a lot about like risk scenarios. right So we look at, this may work, but but this may work short term. What does it mean midterm? What does it mean long term? And I have that feedback mechanism so ingrained in me that almost every decision I make, I'm just always like, do a quick one, two, three. It's like, OK, what would the option that we have? OK, this doesn't make sense. This partially makes sense. This is probably the way to go. So you just
01:11:16
Speaker
You're constantly running that feedback loop in your head, um which helps for me personally a lot in making these decisions. but um It's sometimes really hard to narrate those perspectives because you you think so far ahead. um It's 40 chests sometimes, right? You're just like, okay, but if, you know, client access this, and we're going this direction, we're doing this, then Ross spoke about the outcome of the outcome, right? So we we we dig sometimes even deeper. see For every scenario, there's an outcome of the outcome.
01:11:49
Speaker
um that That is the method that I always use, but it it has limitations because it just it's mostly in my head because I've been trained that way and not everybody thinks that way. But I do believe that risks ah risk thinking without being risk averse is is probably the way to go because like risks are, in my opinion, opportunity. um You just need to understand what the outcome of an opportunity can be. um And sometimes that means a lot of risks and that is fine, right? As long as you can somehow calculate a little bit of the scenarios in which way this risk is going to spread out and the opportunity is going to play out. um that's That's how I generally roll, like try to at least.
01:12:32
Speaker
yeah Salads. I mean, go on. Go ahead, James. I was going to say kind of to that point, like i'm ah I'm a huge fan of of taking inventory. If I have a a big decision that we got to make, right a big pivot or something, the my My first step is always to take a step back and say, okay, this is more or less the decision that I have to make. The first question is always, do I actually have to make this decision or is this just the decision that's been provided to me? If I don't like the answer, maybe I need to change the question. So is the question right? And then step two is, okay, what resources do I have in front of me now?
01:13:11
Speaker
that I can use to try and answer this question. And if I don't have enough resources, then again, probably the wrong question, but really kind of doing a deep dive into What are my options? What's within my control? right What can I influence? um And then from there, then like you said, kind of medium term, right? What do I do now? what is What are the potential outcomes for that in the near to medium term? And then the last thing that I'll often consider is the long term, long term, long term being three to five years out. um Because once you get past that first step and you're moving again,
01:13:48
Speaker
right? Then you can kind of pivot and start really understanding what those problems are. um What is it? ah Was it like stagnation through consideration or whatever it is? like I see a lot of founders get into that. Well, I'm not going to start this project because in five years, there might be a regulatory hurdle that I won't be able to overcome and so it's not even worth trying. Yeah. Okay. So then why are we having this conversation? right So the inventory helps keep me grounded and helps me to come back and say, okay, this is where I think I want to go, but this is what I have control over right now.
01:14:21
Speaker
And to a certain degree, if you don't have control over it, or if there's externalities that you can't anticipate, like right then you made the best decision with the information that you have. I would add to that sometimes just start doing it. Like paralysis analysis is a real, real big thing. You have it with engineers, you have it with finance, you have it in marketing. It's just like, yeah, but what if this? but Go do it. If the risk is manageable, go do it. Just do it. see Because the moment you start doing it, a lot of other possibilities and opportunities open up. yeah What's the opportunity cost? right like A lot of people don't take that into the risk assessment, the the the risk of not doing anything. um A lot of times, always, by a large portion, the risk of actually doing something.
01:15:06
Speaker
yeah And I think people often forget that if you start doing things, you fail. And that's that's where yeah your your learning comes in. right So you're're you're now, like let's say, 10% smarter than you were like before you started. So anything is just do it. Just get it get it on the road. If you decide halfway, it's like, OK, this was not the right decision. I mean, in manageable and ah risk assessment, obviously, right like if it's high risk, like make sure you you think it right, but just start doing it because sometimes you come to very new opportunities and perspectives or you just realize, shit, this is not the right way, but at least we got this question answered, right? This is not the way. Next one.
01:15:42
Speaker
yeah Scariest thing for a founder is a business with no momentum. Oh yeah. Yeah. As by and large, terrifying. Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. Mindful of time. I'm going to add in just two more models. Like everyone knows this one. It's a swatch like strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats model. You'll be like economics chapter three of the textbook. I find always super useful. like macro Yeah, when I'm looking at stuff, it's just like, you know if you like If you dive down deep into how you're supposed to put that thing together, it's really useful. Yeah, I agree. And um and on like project or decisions, like project management or decisions, I always use Reiki, which is or reiki depending on where you're from responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. who That's decision making amongst teams. i We're not going to go through it now, but for everyone watching this, two super useful models.
01:16:39
Speaker
that alongside the Eisenhower, which is more, what am I going to do today? Or like when you've got a lot on, Google the Eisenhower, and you can just use that. And you'll find clarity pretty quickly. You've just got to be belligerent around deciding that you're going to commit to that. And things think like I think we can all agree as founders, like things fall through the cracks. and i think there you mean you You miss an email, or a piece of communication, or someone wants something, and something things sometimes things happen. um You've just got to keep going.
Starting Anew: Creativity and Personal Growth
01:17:11
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
01:17:13
Speaker
um Moving into our next section, the Desert Island Essential section, um this is if you were right at the beginning of your career, you have no bags, no investments, no reputation, no black book. What would you invite? What would be the five things that you would advise yourself to start doing, bring with you to your start-up Desert Island? So this is not a physical desert island. This is feeling like you're on desert island. thirty month Mental desert island. Mental desert island. Oh, what I would do to have that desert island these days sometimes.
01:17:46
Speaker
iland i no and So obviously prepared this question, right starting from zero. And what I realized, it's it's not so much about things, but about what those things represent for me. right So um every time I change houses, every time I move, every office I move into, The first thing that I need in some way, shape, or form is a whiteboard. like I think better on my feet. I like to draw things out visually. um i but Actually, I learn visually much quicker than audibly.
01:18:19
Speaker
um And it's also it's an incredible tool for collaboration, like communicating these ideas and then getting people to buy into it. And so whatever that collaboration tool is for you or that ideation tool is for you, um some version of that. But for me, just give me a whiteboard. like i've I have completely destroyed walls of mirrors and hotel rooms and stuff just with you know whiteboard because I needed it at that moment. um So, whiteboard number one. Number two, a bar or a restaurant or a cafe or a terrace or something, right? Again, get out of your office, get out of your zone, go take a walk, find a place, a different environment to kind of ground you again and help you get that perspective. We've said this a few times today about how important it is to get perspective. And I mean, for me personally,
01:19:08
Speaker
it's It's a good meal. It's a good drink. It's a good glass of wine. ah it's It's a good conversation um and context setting and being able to get out and still be kind of on point. Still be thinking about what you're supposed to from a business perspective, but doing it from something that feels more casual. You need both. community um the desert island might be a little bit tough, but some way to communicate with the people that you're trying to solve for. right yeah um Sometimes this could be super, super niche. ah But again, maybe this is just me, but my instinct is regularly to isolate myself and that's the worst way to do things.
01:19:44
Speaker
um And so forcing yourself to identify with a larger group of people to understand what your collective problems are, um and then figuring out how you can improve that. right You shouldn't just be doing a solution for the sake of a solution. You should be trying to improve something for your community in general. um And then eventually something that you can obviously monetize and survive off of. um just because everyone says a book. right I'm going to do the opposite and say not books because there's not a single book in my life that I think has changed my life. no But I think what's more important is the ideas in those books. And typically,
01:20:25
Speaker
When I need that idea, someone around me will say, hey, have you read this? yeah And if I've read it, I go, oh, yeah, I totally need to go think about Annie Duke thinking in bets, right? Or something like that, because I have to do this you know risk assessment stuff. um Or if I haven't read it, then that gives me a chance to quickly fly through that book. um And so the books themselves, not that important, but surrounding yourself with people that read those books. And again, kind of filter that information for you and make those recommendations. um I had wasted a lot of my 20s reading the next big business book, 4-hour, work week, whatever. right like i All this kind of
01:21:09
Speaker
There's a collection of authors that their only success is being an author, right? and And the temptation to read those books, I think, is very strong. And so avoiding that pitfall by filtering through your community, I think, is important. um And then time, timing. right How long do you want to be on that desert on that desert island, enjoy the desert island? like that's ah It's a really great place to be. um Looking back, i mean it wasn't a desert island, but when I first moved to Europe from California, I found myself with like two or three weeks where I couldn't get into France. So I had to go to Greece with no plan. And I literally went to an island because the Airbnbs were cheaper with my dog and there was nothing. like it was
01:21:54
Speaker
like four restaurants in a marina and my small little Airbnb. And I got more creative thinking done in that space with that time in that island that I would love to go back and do that again at some point in my life. um Obviously, not anytime soon. But like I think time is also super, super important, just being cognizant of how special it is that you are on this startup desert island. And you have this opportunity to really kind of manifests an idea um and and then what drives that idea, right? um
01:22:28
Speaker
I think, Charlie, very early on in our relationship, we talked about what is your motivation? And it can't just be money. um And for me, it's building. It's being creative. like I love solving problems. um And in this particular case, for me, it's a lot about agency. right like Being a founder for me meant I had the opportunity to work remotely. I had the opportunity to inspire people, to build a team, to solve a problem for people that I care about. And that kind of wraps all of this up together for me. um Thoughts, comments, are we talking about this or is it just me? It's all you. Okay. This is just you spitting wisdom and they they're they're great. like ah I love ah the the concept perspectives on this and I think you know specifically time, I want to add something they're just there just as a comment. I think people always think they need to do something useful with their time.
01:23:20
Speaker
And I often say it's very good not to do something useful with your time. Go out, play a video game. like As a founder, you need different perspectives. Don't run. Don't do 80-hour work weeks. Keep it at 40 or 50 or whatever you are comfortable with. But spend time doing other stuff. like Time is something so, so important in your you're for your brain and for your creative thinking, as you mentioned. I mean, I think what you find is that you're, when you're a founder, you end up working all the time anyways, right? It's always in the back of your mind. And course sometimes you have to force yourself to take it.
01:23:55
Speaker
and One of my favorite things that I did on that Greek island was eat pistachios and watch the cats outside fight. like That was it. That's super useful because it that allows your brain to do something different than sit in front of the screen and think about the problem. You always think about a problem, but not that consciously. yeah um Well, we've reached the end of the show. James, could you tell our audience where they can find you and learn more about it? I mean, absolutely. You can find me at most of the conferences is here. Most of the conferences next year. ah Join the Roadshow, baby.
01:24:27
Speaker
ah yeah i Intu.xyz, I-N-T-U.xyz. I think it's just James Bryant Bork on LinkedIn. um At Twitter, it's underscore Belaguer, B-E-L-A-G-U-E-R. This is my grandmother's maiden name. funny um When I first got into crypto, I wasn't sure if it was legal, so I did all of my first stuff with my grandmother's maiden name. Wonderful. So yeah, just about all my Web3 socials are somehow related to B-E-L-A-G-U-E-R. um That's actually where we got gware.co from as well. There's a whole other story there. um But yeah, and if you are if you're building in Web3, if you're trying to get to a mainstream audience, if you
01:25:16
Speaker
believe that the future of the internet should be you know one on-chain but also indistinguishable from online, um then come check out what we've built within too. I think that the infrastructure that we've built is one, super necessary, um but two, super realistic and super practical for most projects. um And ah if it's not, then tell us why. right Open communication and feedback um so we can continue to iterate. But we're really proud of where we are right now. ah really proud of the team. And ah yeah, look forward to hopefully working with a lot of folks. And yes, this is a sign off. if If you're thinking of starting a new project, if you're thinking of becoming a founder, if you've done it before, if you've never done it, ah just just do it. i don't Don't think about it. it's Again, the bottom is always far away, but the highs are so much higher. um So it's been an absolute pleasure being here with you guys. And thanks for having me.
01:26:11
Speaker
Thanks for being here, man. and was ah I think there's a lot of golden nuggets and perspectives coming out of this, and I hope that our listeners really enjoy this. And if you made it this far into the episode, thank you for listening. um We'd love to see you subscribe, like, repost. We love to see our content out there because we believe that the content that we deliver is educational and incredibly valuable for new first-time founders and new people in Web3. So, you know, hit that button and we'll see you next week with the next episode. Thank you very much. Thanks, everybody. Bye.